“This feather pillow of mine is apt to slip if I don’t watch it,” he said, wriggling the back of his head against the cold stone of the floor, from which the straw had worked away. “I dunno could you gather it up a bit, Father.” He grinned. “I’d ask you to put me boots under me for a pillow, but if them thieving guards found them loose, they’d shweep them from me.”
“Ss-h, my son!” the priest whispered warningly. He shook up a handful of straw and made it as firm as he could under the man’s head. “It is not prudent to speak so loud. Remember you cannot see who may be behind you.”
“Indeed and I cannot,” returned Denny Callaghan. “I’ll remember, Father. That’s great!” He settled his head thankfully on the straw pillow. “I’ll sleep aisier to-night for that.”
“And Monsieur le Capitaine—has he moved yet?” The priest glanced at a motionless form near them.
“Well, indeed he did, Father, this afternoon. He gev a turn, an’ he said something like ‘Tired People.’ I thought there was great sense in that, if he was talkin’ to us, so I was cheered up about him—but not a word have I got out of him since. But it’s something that he spoke at all.”
The cure bent over the quiet figure. Two dark eyes opened, as if with difficulty, and met his.
“Norah,” said Jim Linton. “Are you there, Norah?”
“I am a friend, my son,” said the cure. “Are you in pain?”
The dark eyes looked at him uncomprehendingly. Then he murmured, “Water!”
“It is here.” The little priest held the heavy head, and Jim managed to drink a little. Something like a shadow of a smile came into his eyes as the priest wiped his lips. Then they closed again.